


The Elusive Light

by MxFelicitations



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Astronomy, BAMF Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, BAMF Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, BAMF Nile Freeman, Books, Chess, Cooking, Drawing, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Implied/Referenced Torture, Istanbul, Junk Food - Freeform, M/M, Martial Arts, Mentorship, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Music, POV Nile Freeman, Part I Complete, Poetry, Studio Ghibli, Team as Family, Temporary Character Death, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MxFelicitations/pseuds/MxFelicitations
Summary: "Nile made her bed with an orderliness that would do her old drill sergeants proud. She did fifty push-ups on the carpet next to her bed, then did fifty more one-handed. She did sit-ups until sweat poured down her back. Slipping silently into the elegant tiled bathroom, she showered in cold water in less than five minutes, leaving the shampoo and soap in neat rows. She didn’t have a uniform, but she freshened herself up and dressed with as much military precision as she could muster. When duly presentable, she came down into the main level.Joe and Nicky weren’t there, but Andy was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a triangular slice of baklava on a plate. She was fully dressed, but her feet were bare, propped up on her chair as she read a book in — apparently — Turkish.Nile stood at parade rest, a respectful distance away. 'Reporting for duty, ma’am.'"--How does a young, driven soldier adapt to life with her new unit, especially when that unit is two nine hundred year old husbands and a commander older than Jesus? How does a unit become a team? How does a team become a family? And what happens when that family is put to the test?
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 75
Kudos: 376





	1. Ribbon of the river, by my side

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in Istanbul in the present-day. While I've never been to Istanbul myself, I've traveled nearby and I did my best to represent some of that feeling here. I've otherwise played fairly fast and loose with history and geography.
> 
> I have never been in the service, so I've made some guesses about how an American servicemember might confront the long-term work of building a life with this ragtag group. Please don't take any of these assumptions too hard; this feels true to Nile, from what we've seen of her stout heart and strong spirit.
> 
> I have a personal love of Team as Family and Training Montage scenes, so I've indulged myself a bit here. Featuring gratuitous martial arts, gun training, cooking, and music scenes! Also, Joe wears pajamas that say Juicy on the ass.
> 
> Title from "Ribbon" by Billie Marten.

In the end, they leave Booker standing on the edge of the Thames. They leave Copley with a burner phone and an address in Istanbul. 

After an RAF flight via Landstuhl, they touched down on a private airfield in Ankara at two o’clock in the morning, piled into a secondhand Renault, and drove into Istanbul as the sun rose. 

Nile awoke to see an unfamiliar working-class district sliding past the car window. Polish box trucks and local taxicabs rumbled beneath cement overpasses, battered green freeway signs posting directions in labels she couldn’t read. Weather-worn pink rooftops glimmered in the morning sunlight, with Soviet bloc apartment highrises stacking in the distance. On the horizon, it looked like rain.

“Where are we?” she asked. Her voice was scratchy with sleep. She sat up, cracking her neck, unfolding her jacket from where she’d folded it up as an impromptu pillow against the car window.

“Istanbul,” said Andy, as she merged into the next lane. “It was Constantinople before that.”

“I know that,” Nile said without thinking. “I’ve heard They Might Be Giants.”

“What?” Joe was already awake, squeezed into the passenger’s seat, broad shoulders barely fitting in the cramped Renault. “What might be giants?”

“‘Istanbul, not Constantinople?’” Nile said. “It’s a song.”

“I don’t know it,” said Andy.

Joe rummaged in a bag at his feet, then started unwrapping a protein bar in bright red plastic. “Nicky and I used to live here,” he said, turning to see her. “It was Constantinople back then. They called it the grand jewel of Greek Christendom. It was the largest city on the planet.” He took a bite. “Felt like Paris or New York. Hundreds of cultures, thousands of people, races and religions from all over the world. The street food was goddamn incredible, let me tell you. They even had a sports stadium.” 

“You guys used to live here?”

“Oh, yeah. We had this great little apartment — it had this blue tiled patio overlooking the Golden Horn from the north, up the hill from the Galata Tower. It was the — how do you say it now? — the  _ gayborhood _ .”

“When was this?”

“We first moved here in the 1170s. It was just the two of us. We made a home here. Made a life. Probably would have stayed as long as we could,” Joe said. His smile faded. “But on the twelfth of April, 1204, there was a clear morning and a north wind.”

Andy reached over and squeezed his hand. Nile didn’t understand.

“What happened in April, 1204?”

“The combined forces of Pope Innocent the Third’s Latin Christian army and the Venetian navy attacked the city, raped and pillaged her, and looted her to her very bones. They called it the Sack of Constantinople,” said Nicky. He was stirring from sleep, scrubbing his eyes, unfolding his body like an dancer unspooling from a difficult position. It was the most Nile had ever heard him say all at once.

She felt suddenly, painfully awkward.  _ Stupid.  _ “God,” she said slowly. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot they don’t teach us in school. At least, not at the schools I went to.”

Nicky smiled at her, his eyes soft and kind. “That is okay, Nile,” he said gently. “There is much they would never be able to teach, much you would never know unless you were there.”

“Yeah! Like just how fucking good the quince tarts were in Constantinople back in the day,” said Joe, pointing with his protein bar for emphasis. “That was a peace offering more than once.”

“Oh my God,” said Nicky, eyes going wide. “You never saw such a thing. They were these delicious little warm pastries filled with sweet quince, they came about four in a steamer basket. Joe used to bring them to me to say he was sorry after a fight.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Joe said, laughing around a mouthful of protein bar. “You brought them to  _ me, _ if memory serves.”

“Not a chance,” said Nicky archly. “You used to storm out of the apartment and come back three hours later with a basket of quince and a bouquet of flowers, tears in your eyes, practically ready to quote Abu Nuwas at me.”

Nile had never heard Nicky talk so much. “You guys fought? I mean, after you stopped killing each other?”

Andy snorted. “Nobody fought like Joe and Nicky in those days,” she said. 

“ _ In our defense _ ,” said Joe, a little testily, “our Constantinople period was very intense. Everything was still very new between us, we were both still very religious. Can you imagine, the two of us praying five times a day in a three hundred square foot apartment?”

“Five times? Oh, please. Do not tell lies, lover.  _ You _ prayed five times a day.  _ I  _ prayed seven.”

“Jesus,” said Nile. “Seven times?”

“Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline,” Nicky said with a grin, counting them off on his fingers. “It could have been eight, except I rarely ever got up at two o’clock in the morning for Matins. Joe only had Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha, like an amateur.”

Joe threw the balled-up protein bar wrapper at Nicky’s head. Nicky let it bounce off with a grin.

“What did you guys fight about? If it’s okay to ask?” Nile’s curiosity felt like a hunger. There was so much to learn.

“What didn’t we fight about?” Joe laughed. “Okay, okay. Let me paint you a picture here, young Nile.” His warm brown eyes were filled with glee, a storyteller warming to his subject. “All right.  _ So. _ My beloved Niccoló was the third son of a well-educated noble house in the Genoan aristocracy. Back then, that meant he’d been trained in reading and classical languages, drilled on astronomy and mathematics and the natural sciences, hand-selected from birth for the priesthood. He could read Aramaic and write Greek and plot the location of Venus and quote Ovid and deliver a full Mass from memory. And obviously he was very good with a crossbow and phenomenal with a longsword,” Joe said, deferentially. “But! And this is an important but —”

“Here we go,” muttered Nicky, eyes rolling heavenward —

“ —  _ But _ this dumb motherfucker —”

“ — Lord, give me strength —”

“ — barely ever had to do his own  _ shopping _ before coming to the Holy Land. He could read six languages and name the constellations and take down a moving target at 350 yards in a crosswind, but he couldn’t haggle to save his life. He gave away every penny we ever earned to every beggar with a charming story. Ask him to build something with his hands, he’d practically break out in hives. Ask him to work actual hard labor, he’d get the vapors. It was unbelievable —”

“This is untrue,” cried Nicky. “This is all lies. You are filling this girl’s head with lies.”

“Oh, yeah? How do you remember it, then, sunshine?” Joe leaned back, folding his arms in challenge.

“I seem to recall a particular stubborn bastard getting involved in every barfight from here to Rhaedestus —”

“We’re here,” said Andy mildly. 

And so they were. Andy pulled the Renault into a low, single-car garage tucked beneath a narrow house, sandwiched between new residential buildings and shining glass-walled condos. After killing the engine and pulling their bags from the trunk, Andy led them through a door, up a small flight of stairs, and into a space that made Nile’s jaw drop.

This was no dark cave in an abandoned mine, no abandoned house on a rumbling flightpath. This was a stunning modern apartment, open-concept and spacious. 

Soaring ceilings and gleaming hardwood floors ran all the way down to an elegant living room. One entire wall was an enormous glass window overlooking the sea. A sleek, dark, well-appointed kitchen stood off to the left, the door open to a sun-drenched tiled bathroom off to the right. Turning in a slow circle, Nile realized the apartment was lofted, with three private bedrooms tucked up above and accessible via a spiral staircase.

“Jesus,” she said. “This isn’t Gouissanville. Where did you find this place?”

Andy quirked an eyebrow. “AirBnB.” She dumped her bag on the nearby table, stripped off her jacket, and promptly headed for the bathroom. “Make yourselves at home, I’m taking a shower.”

Joe was investigating the kitchen, opening the fridge and all the cupboards, finding them spotless and bare. “We gotta go shopping,” he called back over his shoulder. “I want to make breakfast!”

Nile wandered forward slowly, almost afraid to touch. Everything looked so elegant and beautiful — spotless floors and shining mirrors, soft Persian rugs in reds and oranges, rich caramel leather sofas, a state-of-the-art flatscreen TV, a low shelf well-stocked with bottles of unfamiliar wines and decanters of brown liquors. The floor-to-ceiling glass wall offered an incredible view of the seaside. 

Pushing open the door fitted invisibly into the glass wall, she stepped out onto a narrow balcony that was just deep enough for a couple of chairs. Crossing to the railing, she looked out to see the city from above. Istanbul was all glimmering mosques and cathedrals and apartment buildings, the long curve of a bay, the water streaked by wakes of distant boats. She could smell rain, the scent of cooking garlic and lamb, something like flowers.

She didn’t know much about the economy of Istanbul, but she was pretty sure a month in this apartment cost more than some members of her family back home made in six. 

She leaned against the balcony until it started to rain.


	2. The railway tracks will leave a glimpse of the light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning, on their first full day in Istanbul, Nile awoke before dawn with a feeling of being deeply and seriously unmoored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing a little creatively with martial arts and how immortality works. Enjoy!

The next morning, on their first full day in Istanbul, Nile awoke before dawn with a feeling of being deeply and seriously unmoored.

For years, she had lived on a routine. Life in the Marines had instilled in her a fundamental rightness of schedule and order. Wake-up was always at a certain hour, morning drills and work-outs were always at a particular time, patrols were conducted on a precise rhythm and pattern. Even mealtimes were ordered with exactitude, different ranks and groups proceeding through the chow line on specified schedules. 

But today, she was waking up in a sumptuously comfortable bed, with no particular drill or exercise or patrol scheduled for any particular time, sharing a resplendent apartment with two nine hundred year old husbands and a unit commander older than Jesus. 

She didn’t know any of them very well and had no idea what her role was meant to be in this new unit, especially now that the op was settling in for the long haul. (Just how long this particular op would last was a thought too unsettling to consider.) 

Booker had clearly been their tech guy. Was she meant to do the same? 

_ What was she supposed to do?  _

She gave herself two full minutes to allow this wild, screaming thought to fill her brain. 

After precisely one hundred and twenty seconds, she rose and got to work. 

Nile made her bed with an orderliness that would do her old drill sergeants proud. She did fifty push-ups on the carpet next to her bed, then did fifty more one-handed. She did sit-ups until sweat poured down her back. Slipping silently into the elegant tiled bathroom, she showered in cold water in less than five minutes, leaving the shampoo and soap in neat rows. She didn’t have a uniform, but she freshened herself up and dressed with as much military precision as she could muster. When duly presentable, she came down into the main level.

Joe and Nicky weren’t there, but Andy was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of black coffee and a triangular slice of baklava on a plate. She was fully dressed, but her feet were bare, propped up on her chair as she read a book in — apparently — Turkish.

Nile stood at parade rest, a respectful distance away. “Reporting for duty, ma’am.”

To her credit, Andy didn’t raise an eyebrow. She dog-eared a page in her book, set it beside her napkin, and turned to consider Nile, appraisingly.

“Good,” Andy said. “You’re up early, worked out a bit. How do you feel?”

This was not a familiar question at morning inspections. Nile swallowed. “Um.” She coughed. “Confused. I’m not quite sure what’s next on this op, ma’am. Andy.”

Andy took a drink of coffee. “There’s more coffee in the maker. Help yourself and we’ll talk.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The coffee was delicious — none of the instant sludge they used to serve in Afghanistan, or even the slightly better stuff they had at Basic back in Fort Jackson. Nile let the warmth and caffeine suffuse her.

“All right,” said Andy, pushing both book and baklava out of the way. “First things first: While this is technically a unit, and I am technically your commanding officer, we are also a family. We may not be your only family, and you are joining us at a strange time, but we are a family. Eventually, I hope you may be able to see us that way, as your brothers and sister at arms.”

Nile nodded at this.  _ Like Army buddies. Got it. _

“Second, there’s no need to stand on ceremony. Your day is your own, your schedule is your own, your time is what you want it to be. Joe, Nicky, or I may vanish for hours or days at a time; you should feel free to do the same. But we will always rendezvous back here. I want you to relax and enjoy yourself, as long as you always come back to the group safely and without a tail that might put us in danger.”

Nile nodded again.  _ Same rules as shore leave. Understood. _

“We’re probably going to be waiting awhile for Copley’s next call. Booker and Merrick put us in a lot of heat — we need to wait for it to cool down. If you’re looking for something to do, I’d suggest training. You’re never going to end up with a better stretch of time to learn from the best in the world.”

“You?”

“Not yet,” said Andy. “Him.” She pointed over Nile’s shoulder.

Joe was coming down the stairs, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He was hardly wearing any clothes — just two mismatched socks (one black, one red) and a pair of inexplicably fluorescent pink flannel pajama bottoms. His dark, curly hair stuck up all along one side of his head. As he passed her to head straight for the coffeemaker, Nile realized the pajama pants said  _ Juicy _ on the ass.

Joe didn’t exactly look like the best in the world. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d killed Keane with his bare hands forty-eight hours prior.

Andy must have seen the look on her face. She grinned over her cup. “You’ll see.”

“She’ll see what?” yawned Joe, slapping two cups on the counter, rifling through the cupboards for the box of sugar he’d picked up the day before.

  
“Training day,” she said. “For Nile. See how things are, what we need to work on.”

Joe nodded, hooked both cups with his left hand, saluted with his right, and headed back up the stairs. “Make some space in the living room, we’ll use that Persian rug as a mat.” With that, he disappeared back into his and Nicky’s bedroom.

Andy smiled at Nile. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

Together, she and Andy wrestled both sofas and all three squashy armchairs out of the way, pushing the bookcase up against the wall, stashing delicate glassware inside of cabinets. With furniture and art cleared away, the size of the living area was as sprawling and spacious as any gym, the rug functioning as a perfectly serviceable tumble mat.

Eventually, Andy took her leave, withdrawing to the balcony with a fresh cup and her book, crossing her bare feet up on the railing overlooking the sea, eating baklava and licking the honey off her fingertips.

“All right, little sister,” said Joe. He had re-emerged, freshly showered and changed, looking a bit more like the seasoned soldier Nile had first met. His hands were empty and he carried no weapon. Nile wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting — Andy’s  _ labrys _ , maybe?

Behind him, Nicky — also showered and dressed — was setting up shop at the kitchen table, spreading out a duffel bag with guns and edged weapons of varying sizes and complexity. From this distance, Nile could see a Desert Eagle and a Beretta, a vintage-looking M1 Garand with a wood stock, and a dark, camo-green rifle on a stand. Unscrewing a pot of familiar, sharp-smelling grease, Nicky began taking them apart for cleaning and service.

If she closed her eyes, Nile might have been back in her old stomping grounds, ready for a dust-up with Dizzy before cleaning her service rifle for inspection. 

She turned her focus back to Joe and stood at attention. “Yes, sir.”

“Obviously I can tell you are very good,” he said. “I know about your stunt on the plane and I saw you at the lab. Today, I want to see what moves you, what you’re comfortable with. We’ll start with a little hand-to-hand, so I can get to know you.”

“Got it.” 

He took up a modern boxer’s stance, dropping into an L with his lower body and protecting his head with lightly curled fists. He looked exquisitely comfortable, as though this posture was easy and natural as breathing. Nile supposed it was. She did the same, summoning the old muscle memory from her days back at Uppercut on the South Side and her years of practice in the service.

“This won’t be like other training fights you might have done, Nile,” Joe warned. “We have no pads or gear, but I don’t want you to fear breaking bone or losing teeth. I want to see what you can do.”

A cold bead of sweat dropped into her stomach. This wasn’t quite so familiar territory.

“Ready?”

She nodded once, sharply, trying not to let her fear show.

“Let’s begin!”

He swung wide, a wild and obvious haymaker that any amateur boxer could dodge easily. She ducked without issue, letting his fist sail over her head. Using the opening, she darted forward and hit him with a few quick bodyshots — light hits, peppering him for annoyance more than damage. He danced backward. She matched his footwork without issue.

“Good! Let’s try a little something harder.”

Abandoning the pretense of the easier swing, Joe came in fast and hard. His jabs were quick and unforgiving, hooks and uppercuts punishing. She caught a sailing cross in the jaw and staggered backward, pain and heat blossoming wildly up through her face. She coughed, blood in her mouth. Ready to give it a little more juice, she came in faster and harder, swinging neatly beneath and between his strikes, getting close enough to land a sharp kick to his groin.

“Shit!” Joe cursed and staggered back a step. 

From the table, Nicky clapped. “Very good, Nile!”

Joe shook himself out, clearly already healed up. He grinned, a clever, wild glint in his eye. “All right. Come on, then!”

This time, their spar reached a new level. He threw in a few moves she recognized from Muay Thai and MMA. She capitalized on some tricks she’d picked up from judo and Brazilian jiu jitsu. A swing, a grab, a press, a joint-lock, a sweeping kick, a knee-block — they were sparring on a level Nile had never experienced before (except with Andy on the plane). They ranged all around the room, crashing into bookshelves and sending pillows flying. Her heart was pumping, muscles singing, sweat dripping from her temple, iron-tasting blood on her lip. They reached a stalemate, swinging and dropping each other equally within just a few seconds.

“Good! Very good,” Joe said, breathing hard. He lifted up his shirt and scrubbed sweat from his brow. “Let’s bring it up another level, shall we?”

She spat and nodded, eyes front, hands up.

And without warning, he descended. 

When she awoke, it was evident several long minutes must have passed. Her entire body felt like it had been hit by a truck. She propped herself up on her elbows just in time to feel both knees crack back into place. She gasped. “Oh — Oh, Christ — Did you goddamn kill me?”   
  


“No, just rang your bell pretty good,” said Joe, hauling her up with a strong grip on her forearm. She couldn’t help but lean her weight against him for a moment, letting her limbs and balance rearrange themselves. “And busted your legs up pretty bad.”

“Jesus,” she said, breathing in and out hard, like a horse. “Jesus.”

When he was sure of her healing and balance, he let go, then beamed at her with a warm, easy smile. “You did very well! Beautifully done, Nile. I gave you everything I had at the end, and you hung in there very well.”

“Thanks,” Nile said. She straightened her braids with one shaking hand. “So, what did you get to know about me?”

“Right.” Joe stepped back, with an appraising look — not unlike the one Andy had leveled at her earlier that morning. 

“So! You’re not tall, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Height gives me reach and leverage, for example, but I also leave vertical openings. A short, compact fighter can get close and strike in the gaps, as you demonstrated excellently. A combat knife or dagger would do you nicely.”

Nile nodded. “Short combat knives are standard issue for US Marines — I know how to use one.”

“Good. A shorter fighter also has a lower center of gravity. Unlike me, you’re actually well-suited for low, off-balance grapples and throws, especially rear throws that pitch your opponent backwards over your own body. Digging deep on judo would be a great fit for you, I think.”

“I’ve heard that before — back in the service, I took a few judo classes, I really liked them.”

“Excellent! We’ll get you started. Now, here’s the tougher part.”

“Go on,” she said, ready to take mental notes.

“All fighting human beings have four distinct areas of advantage or disadvantage: build, strength, flexibility, and speed. Unlike all other combatants on the planet, we’re limited in what we can improve. Most adults can get broader, build strength, and grow more flexible. We can never do that.”

Nile frowned. “Wait, what? I love power-lifting, I do strength training every day.”

“You are certainly still welcome to it, but you aren’t getting anything out of it anymore. You see,” Joe said, lifting his arm and making a fist, pointing to his large bicep, “muscle growth comes from subtle muscle tearing. You lift a heavy weight or throw a heavy stone, you tear your muscle. Lactic acid builds up to repair the tear, and your muscle grows back stronger and larger than before.”

“But — our healing factor — it stops?”

“Right. Such tiny, subtle tears — our bodies are healing them instantly, long before any lactic acid or muscle growth develops. We can’t scar, we can’t build muscle, we can’t get any physically stronger than we already are.”

“It is why I am like this always,” Nicky said. He waved a hand to indicate his lithe frame, then flexed. His own bicep was laughably small. “I shot a crossbow with a windlass and carried a  _ spada lunga _ ,” he said cheerfully. “I wasn’t exactly bench-pressing on a regular basis.”

“But what about flexibility?”

“It’s the same thing with joints. Acrobats, dancers, gymnasts — it all comes from repeated breakage and repair, which encourages hypermobility. You could spend hours at the barre or on the yoga mat and never become more dextrous than you are today.”

“So, if I’m never getting taller, stronger, or more flexible, how do I get better?”

Joe grinned. “Speed. You have literally all the time in the world to practice. You can spar, work with your short knife, and run judo drills all day, every day, getting faster and faster with every attempt. You could take five years out of your life to do this, come out looking and feeling exactly the same age as today, and be so gifted one might call it supernatural.”

Nile sat down. “Wow,” she said slowly. 

She thought of Andy, tearing through a dozen soldiers in an abandoned church outside Charles de Gaulle. 

She thought of Booker, calling over his shoulder:  _ She has forgotten more ways to kill a man than entire armies will ever learn.  _

What had thousands upon thousands of years taught her?

Outside, Andy turned a page in her book. Distantly, an airplane came in low over the water, on approach to the airport.

“Also, we must play to our strengths,” said Nicky, who gestured to the table of weapons. 

Dragging her eyes from the window, Nile refocused on Nicky. “What do you mean?”

“I’m tall, but I’m not strong and I’m not flexible. I’m never going to be a brawler like Joe. You’ll see this when we run an op together — I avoid getting into hand-to-hand at all, if I can avoid it.”

“What do you prefer instead?”

Nicky smiled. “Before I died the first time, my weapon of choice was a Genoese crossbow. Over the years, I swapped it for better recurve bows with a lighter draw weight, then compound bows with better precision. In the 1700s, I started working with rifles. In the early 1900s, I switched to snipers.” He patted the slim, green rifle propped up on the table. “This is the Accuracy International AWM, the most accurate sniper rifle on the planet. I’ve made some minor modifications, of course.” In his soft, halting accent, this came out like  _ of corze. _

“You’re the ranged weapons guy?”

“I try to be,” said Nicky. “If I cannot stay out of melee, I have my longsword. Italian longswords are beautifully lightweight — less than two pounds — and keep quite a reach. You see?” Reaching down to a long package on the table, he opened up a sheath and withdrew the sword in question.

Nicky’s longsword was beautiful — it looked brand-new and shone in the light, narrow blade honed to a lethal edge, with a delicate crossbar hilt and a simple black leather-wrapped pommel.

“It is nine hundred years old, but it still makes a sharp edge, yes?”

“That sword is  _ nine hundred years old _ ?”

“It is older than I am,” Nicky said. “It belonged to my father. Anyway, if I can’t use a rifle, I go for the sword. If I don’t have the sword, I usually go for a dagger. Only if I have lost all else before me do I use my body. At that point, I will most likely lose, so I am already preparing for death or rescue.”

“My Niccoló is a very clever fighter,” said Joe, who was looking at Nicky with respect blazing in his eyes. “Thankfully, he leaves the brutes to me, so I can tear them limb from limb!”

With a great cheer, Joe darted forward, head down like a bull, charging Nicky and throwing him bodily over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Nile giggled to see Nicky laughing, arms and legs flailing akimbo like a ragdoll. He yelled over Joe’s shoulder at Nile.

“Nile! Help! I’m being abducted,” he called.

“Show off your skills, get yourself out of it!” she called back.

Nicky’s laughter faded. “Hmm. You know, that’s not a bad idea,” he said, consideringly. He tapped twice on Joe’s shoulder.

Obediently, Joe adjusted his stance, dropping from playful wrestling into something a bit lower to the ground, a little stronger.

“Okay, Nile,” said Nicky. “Watch and learn. In this scenario, I have no rifle and no sword. I am on my own, being transported somewhere. Joe cannot rescue me — perhaps he is fighting enemies nearby.”

Nile nodded. “Go for it!”

In a flash, Nicky lunged his arms down, scissored his legs into a vice-grip around Joe’s throat, swiveled his hips, and successfully jack-knifed Joe ass over teakettle. Both Nicky and Joe hit the ground hard, then scrambled to their feet, crouched low to the ground like wrestlers. It was a completely different stance, Nile saw — less contemporary, more Greek. More like they might have fought in the Holy Land, she realized.

“You want to go?” said Joe, circling slowly. “Show Nile how it’s done?”

Nicky matched his footwork. “ _ Nai _ . Twenty bucks and a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape I can take the match before Andy turns her page.”

“Called,” said Joe with a savage grin.

Nile scrambled up onto the couch to see, thinking fast.

They sprang at each other like animals. One of the tricks, Nile saw immediately, was letting yourself be injured and keep fighting. There was no need to defend yourself or react too strongly — as long as you could take a breaking rib or a shattered patella, you could keep moving. Joe was delivering bodyshots that were surely cracking ribs and bruising organs, but Nicky barely even slowed.

Out on the balcony, Andy adjusted her book, starting the second page on the right. 

Joe clearly had the upper hand — as Nicky had said, Joe was taller, stronger, broader, and better in a bare-knuckle brawl.

But Nicky quickly proved his cleverness. He distracted Joe with a sharp feint and tumble, and while Joe hauled himself back up, Nicky lunged toward the table. The longsword practically flew into his hand, and it was the work of a moment for him to bring both hands together and execute a perfect silent thrust.

Nicky was standing, Joe down on one knee beneath him, arms thrown wide. The point of the sword drove into Joe’s chest, just between the second and third rib, aiming directly for the heart.

Joe looked up at Nicky with something approaching awe. Nicky looked down at him, eyes warm and alive with love, the sword sure and steady in his hands as it plunged into Joe’s chest. Nile almost felt like she should look away — her heart was pounding —  _ Andy _ — what if Joe didn’t heal -

“You owe me a bottle,” Nicky said, withdrawing the sword. Only the barest tip was red.

Nile’s brain stuttered, struggling to catch up. Had he not actually stabbed very far? 

Joe was bleeding, but already standing, the wound closing with an audible wet snap. Nicky wiped off the sword and sheathed it reverently, while Joe reached out with a thumb and swiped a speck of blood from his cheek. 

Nile was horrified to realize her throat was thick with unshed tears. 

Looking back at Nile, Joe’s eyes twisted into a kind of terror.

“Oh, no, it’s okay, Nile,” said Joe. “It’s okay. I promise.” He lifted up his shirt and pointed to the spot. Aside from a swipe of blood, there wasn’t even a scratch. “I’m all healed up. And anyway, Nicky wouldn’t have really killed me.”

“I do not kill if I can help it,” explained Nicky gently. “Especially not in a training match for a new pupil.”

“Oh,” said Nile. She swallowed, then coughed roughly. “Right. That’s — right.”

Outside, Andy finally turned the page.

“Hey! Twenty bucks!” Nicky pumped both hands in the air like he was at a football game, eyes wide and excited. “I did not think I would actually succeed!”

“Hey, you did it!” Joe laughed, clapping Nicky on the back. “My sun and stars.” He pulled out his wallet and — sure enough — pulled out a crumped twenty and passed it to Nicky. “Buy yourself something nice.”

Nicky grinned and slipped the twenty into his own wallet, tucking it back in his pocket. “I’ll buy you some quince.” Joe’s eyes crinkled into a smile.

“Just like old times.” 

“Wait,” said Nile. “Nicky prefers ranged weapons and keeps hand-to-hand as a back-up plan. But if you prefer hand-to-hand, what weapons are your back-up plan?”

Joe actually laughed out loud at this. “Shotgun, of course. Breakfast?”

—

That night, Nile toed off her boots and threw herself face-down onto her bed, fully clothed and too exhausted to even think about getting undressed. 

After a few seconds, she rolled onto her back and sighed. Looking up at the soaring bedroom ceiling, she watched the Istanbul city lights twinkle and dance, shifting and playing through the slats in the closed blinds.

Nile imagined a map in her head. She visualized a red pin thumbtacked between two bays, centered on the northern tip of Istanbul.  _ That’s me. _ Then, to the southeast, a complex web of forward military bases and distant patrols, a pin dropping somewhere in southern Helmand:  _ That’s Afghanistan _ . Widening the map in her mind, she visualized a second pin dropping in London — or maybe Paris by now, she wasn’t sure.  _ That’s Booker _ . Scanning westward, she cast her mind over the Atlantic to the United States, falling in on the Midwest, narrowing in to Illinois, focusing on Chicago. She imagined freeways and overpasses, the thin blue shoreline of Lake Michigan, zooming in her old neighborhood in Chicago. 

What would everyone be doing? 

Doing a little quick math in her head, she considered the eight-hour time difference. It was 11:00 pm here, so it was still Sunday afternoon back home. Mama probably went to church that morning. She rarely missed, even if she had to go alone, even if she had to work a second shift later that night or an early one next morning. Service would have ended a few hours ago, so she was probably back at the house, changing out of her church clothes and putting together Sunday lunch. 

Alexander was a tougher pick: he might be home, but he was just as likely to have gone out with friends. Nile liked to visualize him at home with Mama, maybe playing something on the Switch in his sweats while she set the table. Mama loved R&B, especially the older stuff, so she’d probably be singing along to Earth Wind & Fire (which Alex hated with an ardent passion). Nile could practically see and taste and hear the kitchen in that house, music playing and the soup pot bubbling and the scent of Mama’s Sunday perfume —

Coming to a decision, she pulled herself up into a sitting position and reached into her duffel bag. She cued up her favorite songs (starting with “Godspeed” by Frank Ocean), grabbed her college-rule notebook, tore out the first few pages, clicked open a pen, and wrote in neat, clear block letters at the top left:

**Things to Remember**

**KIA 2020**

Beneath it, she started making a list, jotting neat bullets down the left side of the page. The location and address of her childhood home. A description of her mom and dad and brother. The names and ages of her aunties and uncles and cousins. Alex’s favorite basketball team and video game and Pokemon. Her mama’s favorite bands and gospel songs and TV medical dramas and cuss words. Her dad’s story, his years in the service, his favorite brand of cigarettes, his favorite football team, the music they played at his funeral. She filled a whole column straight down the left-hand side of the page, then flipped to the next and kept going. 

In ten years, in fifty, in a hundred, who knows what she would still remember? Who knows what would be important?

Having filled ten pages on the left, she marked off a final entry —  _ My favorite sandwich is the catfish po boy with cole slaw at the Cajun place next to JJ’s Fish & Chicken on 9th —  _ then drew a line and stopped.

She recapped the pen with shaking hands, then swiped to the next song on her iPhone (“Stars” by SZA). Taking a deep breath, she flipped back to the first page. On the top right, she wrote in a matching neat, clean hand:

**Lessons for Your New Chapter**

**Istanbul, 2020**

Along the right, she started a new bullet list. This one was shorter — only a few lines. They read:

_ Rule #1: Don’t ever get in a situation where you die without being able to free yourself or resolve the conditions that killed you. Remember Quynh.  _

_ Rule #2: Your time may come at any moment. Take seriously this gift you have been given. Be careful in training and don’t use lethal force if you can help it. Think of Andy. _

Then, beneath that:

_ Speak about what is going on with you. Would Booker have betrayed the team if he had been honest about his feelings? Think buddy system in the Marines: sharing with your buddy will help spot issues before they become problematic for your unit. _

_ Keep your own routine, especially in the mornings. A neat, orderly space supports a peaceful, organized mind and helps you show up well for your unit. _

_ This weird, oddball little family are your brothers-in-arms now. Love and show up for them as you would a beloved friend at the front line. But don’t let them become your whole life: be your own person, too. _

_ Leave between missions is good (see previous). But stay safe and do not attract undue attention. _

_ Fight fast. Leverage your short stature and low center of gravity. Get comfortable with a knife and hand-to-hand. Practice daily for speed and ease.  _

_ Play to your strengths. Consider what weapons work for you and make them your own.  _

Then, finally, at the bottom:

_ You can do this. You come from warriors. _


	3. I long to belong (but I always have to go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe danced like he fought, like he cooked, like he sketched and recited poetry and sang — talented and bold, fearless and wild, combining a dozen styles and improvising a dozen more, filling the room, filling the apartment, filling the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A softer, more domestic chapter.

Hours became days. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. The wheel of the year turned. Autumn came to Istanbul.

Nile always awoke before dawn, making her bed each morning with ruthless efficiency and doing her own calisthenics as precisely as if she were still on-base.

All morning, she and Joe would practice unarmed combat. Under Joe’s careful hand, she learned MMA and boxing, judo and BJJ, hapkido and krav maga. She practiced falls and flips and locks and throws, grapples and hooks and jabs, swings and joints and twists. True to Joe’s warning, her own body never changed, but she did find herself growing faster and faster. She got quicker, sharper, more attentive, less distracted. She could take a rib-cracking bodyshot without fazing, shatter an elbow and stay focused, receive a dizzying concussion and push through.

All afternoon, she and Nicky would work on weapons training. With infinite patience and care, soft-spoken and gentle Nicky taught her about rifles and smoothbores, pistols and shotguns, recurve and compound bows, longswords and Zweihanders. She learned to dissemble, clean, and load every gun in the collection, learned how to use the sniper scope as a surveillance tool, learned how to rack the shotgun with one hand behind her back. On loud weekend nights, when they were confident the local street noise would obscure the pops, he’d take her up to the roof and they’d use the silencer for target practice.

(While they trained, Andy typically lounged with her book. She sat outside on the balcony if the weather was nice, or curled up indoors with a blanket. While she didn’t generally engage or step in, Nile got the sense she was keeping a watchful eye. When Nile successfully flipped Joe fully over her head and floored him in a textbook rear sacrifice throw, she caught an approving grin from the Scythian.)

In the evenings, the four of them would rotate cooking duty. With enough time and freedom, the meal Andy affectionately called “family dinner” quickly coalesced into a stupendously bizarre combination of different preferences.

Nicky would start cooking like clockwork, retrieving various ingredients and chopping vegetables with a neat, sparing grace. Moving delicately around the kitchen and working on an arcane timetable known only to him, Nicky would eventually lay out a gorgeous spread. Nicky’s meals were usually an sprawling array of fresh-baked warm breads, simple monastic soups and chutneys, dark flatbreads and crackers, various fragrant cheeses, slices of thin meats, fresh vegetables, little pots of olives and figs and dates, jars of honey. It was never quite the same combination twice, but every meal felt exquisitely peaceful and soothing. Nile had never eaten meals like this before — assembling delightful little sandwiches of Greek bread and Turkish olives, feta cheese and slices of lamb, eating her bodyweight in fresh, warm challah with honey, washing it down with sips of white wine. 

Joe, on the other hand, was the polar opposite. He’d disappear for a couple of hours, then unexpectedly blow back into the apartment with a bang, arms full of towering bags and teetering boxes of groceries. He’d throw Spotify on the speakers (usually something bass-y and loud), then proceed to make an absolutely chaotic mess of the entire kitchen. In the center of the maelstrom, he’d have the shallow wok spitting flame, different meats frying in a mad jumble of spices and smoke, noodles tossing in stainless steel bowls, mysterious pans baking in the oven. Invariably, he’d end up with flour smeared over his eye or a glug of red wine spilled on his shirt before shouting over his shoulder that dinner was done. They would sit down to something different every time — a rich Italian  _ osso buco _ one night, then a searingly spicy Malaysian  _ pad panang _ the next. He’d follow a creamy French  _ coq au vin _ with an enormous Israeli  _ shakshouka  _ after that. His whims and tastes were wild and unpredictable, serving Japanese sushi as an appetizer for Hungarian goulash with a Mexican tres leches cake for dessert. 

On Andy’s turn, they would throw on jackets and go out on foot. With an unerring instinct for fantastic street food, Andy always managed to find the best shish kebabs on tinfoil-wrapped skewers, the most delicious doner gyros in wax paper packages, the biggest meatball sandwiches in plastic baskets. Nile learned Andy had a deep and unyielding love for fast food, especially imported McDonalds fries and German candy bars. Of course, if they ever found baklava, Andy was first in line. As a former athlete and boxer — then a Marine — Nile had never eaten junk food like this before. She soon learned to relax and let herself enjoy it, happily wandering back to the apartment with a warm bag of fries in one hand and an ice cream cone melting in the other.

When it was her turn, Nile did the best she could. She was never a great cook back at home — she usually left that up to her Mama and aunties, zipping in and out of the kitchen to snag bites between games of football with cousins in the backyard — but in this place, with this new family, she had to bring as much of the culture as she could. Sneaking off to her bedroom for privacy, Nile spent hours Googling where in Istanbul she could buy collards and hominy, black-eyed peas and shrimp and sweet potatoes, macaroni noodles and American barbeque sauce. She bookmarked recipe after recipe for things that looked like what her Mama made, converting cups into grams and translating American instructions into Turkish words. Well-armed and prepared, she’d jot everything down and head out on reconnaissance, learning the Istanbul bus system and navigating from grocery store to import market and back again on her own.

Her results were usually a little lacklustre — single-pot recipes, decent attempts at fried collards, mediocre attempts at baked macaroni and cheese. “It’s not quite like my mama makes,” she always said. “I couldn’t find certain things here, and… well.” Fried chicken and fish were her best successes, especially when served sizzling from the pan with hot sauce and a nice helping of homemade mashed potatoes and butter. 

Nicky, Joe, and Andy would smile and dig in and say that it was good.

—

After rounds of training and their evening meals, they would usually stay up late in the living room, talking and spending time together. As the lights went low and the evening went soft around the edges, over glasses of wine and bottles of beer, amid a soft lyrical patois of English, Arabic, and Italian, Nile got to know the others better.

Lounging like a cat across the sofa, Joe quickly proved himself to be a very talented artist. He was constantly making sketches in pencil and charcoal, filling one black moleskin after another (which seemed to collect in teetering stacks on end-tables). His subjects were frequently Nicky, Nile, and Andy — hands, three-quarters profiles, silhouettes. But he also drew scenes from the surrounding city — the glittering view of the bay from the balcony, the local bus rumbling down their neighborhood street, the distant spires of the Blue Mosque, the smooth white dome of the Hagia Sophia. Often, his sketches were places Nile had never seen, clearly drawn from memory — views out of windows in other cities, sunny cafe scenes from other times and places, the corners of bedrooms in apartments half-remembered. Sometimes she recognized Booker. Occasionally, she recognized Quynh.

Although she rarely saw Joe reading, he seemed to have memorized an enormous mental catalog of poetry in different languages — he was forever reciting poems in Arabic and French and English from memory, usually love poems delivered with great passion (and almost always punctuated by sweeping a blushing Nicky into an embrace). 

She and Joe found a common love of music, too — especially thanks to the rather excellent sound system and the infinite availability of streaming music. Their shared tastes started with New Orleans jazz, dipped into East Coast rap, delved into Afro-Cuban rumba, spun through Jamaican dancehall, wandered into West African rock and blues. He introduced her to Tinariwen and IFE and Bombino and Amadou et Mariam. She introduced him to Billie Eilish and Lizzo and Cardi B and Big Freedia. Joe surprised Nile by singing often and easily, low and rich and thick, unafraid to improvise and fearless about embellishment.

And sometimes, when the spirit moved him, Joe would even dance. He would pull any of them into his arms like a salsa dancer, swiveling his hips with an expert’s grace and leading with a natural sense of rhythm. 

Joe danced like he fought, like he cooked, like he sketched and recited poetry and sang — talented and bold, fearless and wild, combining a dozen styles and improvising a dozen more, filling the room, filling the apartment, filling the world.

—

Evenings with Nicky were simpler, quieter, calmer. 

Nicky was a voracious reader and translator, most comfortable when surrounding himself with dozens of books in hundreds of languages, often translating them in his own precise, elegant longhand. While he didn’t talk nearly as often as Joe — and he never quite shed his accent, dropping into Italian as an obvious preference — Nile soon realized Nicky could actually read and write more languages than the rest of them combined. He seemed to particularly pride himself on rare ones, dialects for which there were no translations of The Bible or Harry Potter — Nuer, Tamashek, southern Kurdish. Over a glass of wine, she and Nicky would make a game of it — she would ask him how to say words in various languages, fact-checking him with Google Translate, crowing in delight when she successfully stumped him.

As the night wound on, Nicky would eventually break out a small, warped chess set — clearly battered and well-loved, man-handled through duffel bags and the cabins of airplanes and the trunks of cars for decades. Nile had never learned how to play, so Nicky instructed her in the movements and rules of each piece. Apparently the game originated in Persia and used to be called  _ shatranj _ ; Nicky was forever calling the King the  _ Shah _ and the Queen the  _ Firz _ and the pawns  _ Sarbaz.  _

As Nile carefully picked her way through her moves, Nicky would tell her stories of sitting in parks in Jerusalem and Berlin and Brooklyn, playing chess with old men and small children over cups of tea. He told her stories of the years before that, when chess was seen as a gentleman’s game, one of the noble pastimes of the great French and Italian houses of the Renaissance. Nile never beat him, but Nicky noted every fresh achievement with a warm, kind smile.

Nicky loved taking Nile up on the roof on calm, clear nights. Propped up in rooftop lawn chairs with glasses of wine, he and Nile would spend hours sighting the dark night sky with a cheap amateur telescope he’d acquired from some shop in the city somewhere. Nicky could point out all the different stars and planets and their constellations in different languages, referencing Greek and Chinese and Mayan astronomy as casually as discussing the weather. 

Eventually, the two of them would sit up there in companionable quiet, letting the breeze blow in off the sea, listening to traffic rumble by and distant music thumping from a nearby bar, peering up at tiny, flickering spots Nicky said were Jupiter or Capricornus. It felt comforting, in its way — staring down the line of a long life, what could be more stabilizing than the stars in their unending pattern across the night sky?

Once, at the end of a very late evening together, warm and sleepy, Nicky surprised Nile by actually walking her up to her room. When they reached her door, Nicky reached out a hand and touched her shoulder. 

“ _ Vísita, quǽsumus Dómine, habitatiónem istam _ ,” he said, like a slow benediction. “ _ Et omnes insídias inimíci ab ea longe repélle. _ ” His voice became soft and reverent, clear blue eyes focusing on her. “ _ Angeli tui sancti hábitent in ea, qui nos in pace custódiant _ .” She touched the gold cross at her neck, letting him speak, not fully comprehending the Latin words but understanding their meaning. “ _ Et benedíctio tua sit super nos semper. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. _ ” He squeezed her shoulder once. “ _ Amen. _ ”

“Amen,” she whispered back.

“Goodnight, Nile.”

—

On Andy’s nights, they almost always watched a movie. Andy absolutely  _ loved _ movies. Thanks to the wonders of modern-day streaming accounts, she now had access to practically infinite movie options — and she seemed dead-set on working her way through all of them.

The four of them would usually pile onto the two couches, snagging pillows and blankets and snacks. Joe would throw himself bodily across the entire couch, letting Nicky swing his legs up over his lap, and they would share a blanket like high-school teenagers in love. Andy and Nile took the other couch, usually plopping a gigantic bowl of chocolate-covered popcorn or Skittles between them.

To Nile’s delighted astonishment, Andy’s favorites were rich, visually stunning fantasy movies — especially imaginative children’s fairytales. She loved  _ The Dark Crystal  _ and  _ Labyrinth _ ,  _ Never-Ending Story  _ and  _ The Last Unicorn, The Lion King _ and  _ Moana.  _ After enough examples, Nile began to see her point. If you had lived five thousand years and seen more wars and violence than you could even remember, wouldn’t you also want to be transported to a beautiful, imaginative place that bore no resemblance to life on Earth?

She also shocked Nile by loving gentle romantic comedies, especially modern ones set in New York or at Christmas.  _ When Harry Met Sally _ and  _ Love Actually _ proved to be perennial favorites. They were simple, calming, soft, and funny, with nary a stray bullet or a blood-dripping axe to be seen. Whenever the couple ended up together, usually beneath the dulcet harmonies of a pop cover of a beloved Christmas classic, Andy would smile softly.

Andy definitely did not enjoy historical period pieces. Nile expected the worst offenders to be modern movies set in ancient times — stuff like  _ Kingdom of Heaven  _ or  _ Troy _ — but the ones that really bothered Andy were apparently Regency period pieces.  _ Pride and Prejudice _ made her sneer, and  _ Amadeus _ practically made Andy throw the remote at the television. 

“The sword-and-sandal movies, I give them a pass,” Andy said, waving a hand dismissively. “It was so long ago. I can’t expect them to know how things were, how things looked. But Mozart wasn’t that long ago! I have a safe house in Amsterdam older than the Requiem. Hell, I have  _ clothes _ older than Mozart. How do people not remember how to style the hair? The costumes? The music? This isn’t exactly ancient history here.” 

Early on, they learned it was best to give war and military movies a wide berth. 

_ Zero Dark Thirty  _ went okay, although Joe snorted in laughter at the fictionalizations. (“I’ll just say, we were in the neighborhood,” he said, pointing with his beer. “Only maybe thirty percent of this movie is true.” “I am sure these filmmakers worked very hard,” said Nicky valiantly.) 

But  _ Platoon _ proved tough for Andy. (“Vietnam is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but the war smelled like burning gasoline and cordite and cheap unfiltered cigarettes,” she said quietly, as the credits rolled. “And sweat. It was hard to get clean.”)

The worst of all was  _ Saving Private Ryan _ . Nile didn’t expect a 1990s movie set in World War II to be so convincingly realistic, but evidently it was — something about the audible zing of bullets and the pitch-perfect sluices of blood in the mud. About ten minutes in, Nicky said “Mi scusi,” grabbed his leather jacket off the back of the door, and disappeared for three hours.

They switched to  _ Wizard of Oz  _ and  _ Fantasia  _ after that.

—

Through it all, her notebook continued to fill. She kept memories on the left and lessons on the right. 

The list of memories on the left was growing less factual and more esoteric, more emotional — the scent of her first girlfriend’s shampoo, how she felt after her first night at Basic, what Afghanistan tasted like. 

The list of lessons on the right were growing more precise to their life together. She noted specific hooks and throws she found to be particularly effective, guns and styles she discovered to be especially useful. She developed a color-coded system for logging various recipes that the team seemed to like. She wrote down poems and artists and songs she’d picked up from Joe, usually transliterating Arabic or French or Japanese into English with an awkward little “(sp?)”. She jotted down various words and translations that made her laugh, the rules and tips and tricks for chess, the technical names and symbols for the constellations. 

She noted every movie that Andy liked, knowing with a painful squeeze of her heart that someday soon, this little list might be all she had left. 


	4. I'll never stop, though time is slipping away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> think smart. remember what you know. social engineering and creative alliances are your friend. good luck. also, i already took the shotgun. LOL — يوسف

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a much longer chapter than the others, but I couldn't find a natural place to break it up. Between segments seemed to cut up the action, and I wanted to keep the energy high. I hope it works!
> 
> Note: This chapter is probably the most grisly and violent (all canon-typical, but be warned). There's also a minor mention of police and police brutality, although no police violence occurs.

On the one hundredth and seventieth day of their stay in Istanbul, Nile woke, exercised, showered, dressed, and came downstairs to find the apartment silent and empty. 

A hushed whisper: “Guys?”

No response.

The morning was bright and clear, the sun up and shining, barely a cloud in the blue sky over the bay. Standing motionless at the base of the stairs, Nile could easily sight most of the rooms in the sun-drenched apartment. There was no sign of the others and no sign of a struggle. Even the coffeemaker was turned off, sitting quiet and cold and dark on the counter.

_ Okay. Remember your training. _

With a practiced eye for sensing tension and clearing rooms, Nile took two soundless steps in stockinged feet, swiped the Glock from the duffel bag nearby, and racked a clip (tucking a spare into her pocket). Moving as quickly and silently as possible, deliberately keeping her breathing low and even, Nile worked her way methodically through the apartment. She cleared the kitchen and living room, double-checked the balcony, and swept the bathroom. There was nothing. 

_ No sign of a struggle. Come on, Nile. Think. _

Darting fast up the stairs, Nile started with Andy’s room. Praying Andy would forgive her for the invasion of privacy, she shouldered open the door. Andy’s room was sparse as a tomb: there was a neatly made bed, a barren side-table with a single alarm clock and a slim leather-bound journal (closed, with a single black pen sitting on top), and an organized stack of black boots and shoes in the corner by the closet (also closed). Nile quickly noted there was no sign of Andy’s  _ labrys _ (or indeed any other weapons, her phone, or her wallet). 

_ Did she take it with her? _

Heart in her throat, she crept down the hall to Joe and Nicky’s room. Second a second apologetic prayer after the first, Nile held her breath and toed open the door with one foot. If Andy’s room looked as simple and bare as a hotel room, Joe and Nicky’s was the opposite; the couple had clearly used the past three months to make their own little nest. Their bed was swathed with a brightly-colored, extravagantly-patterned knit blanket Nile recognized from one of Joe’s shopping trips at the Grand Bazaar a few weeks before. The side-table was a riot of paperback books in four or five languages (probably Nicky’s), moleskin sketchbooks and charcoals and pencils (undoubtedly Joe’s), a battered framed black-and-white photo of the two of them (which, like the chess set, looked as though it had traveled through hell and back), and — easily grabbed within arm’s reach of the bed — a loaded nine millimeter. But amid the clothes and books and blankets and forgotten cups of tea, there was no sign of Joe and Nicky, and no sign of a struggle. Then —

_ There. _

There was a note stuck under the edge of the mirror, written on lined paper and folded between an old Polaroid of Joe (shirtless, flipping off the camera) and four tickets to an upcoming concert (Rodrigo y Gabriela). She reached out two trembling fingers and plucked it free.

In Nicky’s clean, even handwriting, she read:

> _ Nile,  _
> 
> _ Today is a test. Have you ever played Tag? You’re It — with some modifications. _
> 
> _ As It, you must find and Tag us. We are not in the apartment and we are not in the building. We will not leave the surrounding five mile radius. _
> 
> _ “Tagging” may include either a physical takedown (tapout) OR a successful shot (with a firearm of your choice). Be thoughtful about lethal damage (recall we do not take chances with training exercises). Above all, DO NOT attract undue attention by police or passers-by. Stealth is essential. This is part of the challenge! _
> 
> _ When you Tag one of us, that person will notify the others via text. They can now provide aid to you while you hunt down the remaining two (or one). This is a lesson in collaboration as well as competition. _
> 
> _ If you can tag all three of us before midnight, you win! _
> 
> _ If you cannot tag all three of us before midnight, the last person standing wins. _
> 
> _ Remember: We do not have to submit to being Tagged. We can fight back. We can run. _
> 
> _ Good luck! You can do it! I believe in you! _
> 
> _ Your brother, _
> 
> _ Niccoló _

Then, in a separate hand, scrawling and chicken-scratch: 

> _ think smart. remember what you know. social engineering and creative alliances are your friend. good luck. also, i already took the shotgun. LOL —  _ _ يوسف _ __

And at the bottom, in a slanting italic:

> _ No hints. If the sun is up, you’re already late. —  _ _ Ἀνδρομάχη _

And that was the end of the note.

Nile swore with feeling.

Crumpling the note in her pocket, she raced to her room and geared up, snagging a slouchy hat to hide her hair, a pair of aviators to hide her face, a nondescript jacket to blend in, black jeans and comfortable shoes. Rushing down to the main floor, she threw together a quick go-bag — water, emergency supplies, a flashlight, her beloved combat knife. 

She dithered for an agonizing few seconds over what to bring for a weapon. True to his word, Joe had already taken the shotgun. She didn’t see the AWM or the Italian longsword, which meant Nicky had clearly taken his own weapons of choice and was probably on a rooftop somewhere. Andy’s  _ labrys _ was nowhere to be seen, and Nile was pretty sure the Beretta was gone, too. Bring the M16 and risk drawing attention? Stick with a knife and risk bringing a knife to a gunfight? She settled for keeping the Glock, punching the safety and tucking it carefully in a deep jacket pocket.

Nile came out of the garage as nonchalantly as possible. Especially with the slouchy beanie, sunglasses, and backpack, she hoped she looked like a casual student on her way to class at uni.

Taking a surreptitious look around the neighborhood, she saw nothing of interest. One of the white-and-yellow city buses was making a right turn on the corner. The bakery was open and a line was already forming at the vegan cafe. On the opposite corner, the pharmacy was rolling up their awning and flipping on their neon green sign. The church three blocks away was tolling for morning services. Distantly, she could pick up the  _ adhan _ starting to rise on loudspeakers to the east. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of Andy, Joe, or Nicky.

She peered up and around at the local buildings. They were surrounded on all sides by new construction and condos, with more historic, colorful buildings a few blocks away. Most of them were taller than their narrow, modern AirBnB, but only a few were unoccupied or still under construction. She zeroed in on two that she suspected could provide a perfectly nice hiding place for a particular sniper. She had no idea where Joe or Andy would try to hide from her, but she had an idea of Nicky’s favorite places. 

_ Time to get to work. _

—

After two hours, her competitive spirit was flagging. She’d climbed up into the top floors of both empty, half-constructed condos, but saw no sign of Nicky. She’d attempted a third (a riskier choice, as it seemed to be occupied on the lower floors) only to be disappointed there, too. Standing between an enormous spool of industrial plastic sheeting and the searing fall of a six-story drop, she permitted herself the smallest of frustrated sighs. 

Maybe she needed a new tactic.

Just then, she felt a puff of air and a deep punch corkscrewing through her left shoulder. Caught off-guard, she couldn’t help but gasp and reel backwards — but, remembering her training, she refused to let herself lose her footing or get distracted. Bearing down and focusing hard, she scanned frantically across the buildings ahead and above her — thinking of wind and directions and angles, thinking of distance and sound and travel, thinking of visibility and sun.

_ There! _

Just across the street, the barrel of a gun disappearing inside a window and gone —

But how could she get there? If she ran all the way down and back up, Nicky would be gone!

Thinking fast, she cast around, looking for anything she could use. Then —

_ Oh, Jesus. _

The crane.

A full-size construction crane, ten tons easy, soared three hundred feet into the air. It was creaking ominously in a light breeze, shining steel glinting in the Istanbul sun.

There was a bucket, a chain, pulleys and ropes — a pathway for a Marine with a competitive streak and adrenaline roaring in her ears -

She was running and making the leap before she could think twice about it. Sneakers touched down onto the box of the crane with a bang. 

The next seconds were pure madness — a dash, a lunge, a scrambling mad leap up steel beam after steel beam — sneakers slipping wildly off smooth metal — meters dropping away into miles beneath her — the breeze soaring high, nearly knocking her off-balance — reaching the apex, the hook, the swing — a deep breath — a leap — wind rushing in her ears — a great crash — 

Blessedly, Nile had judged her leap from the top of the crane well and crash-landed on the correct floor, dropping her shoulder and letting herself tumble in a controlled fall, coming to a stop unharmed. Hardly daring to breathe, she scrambled upwards and lunged straight for the place Nicky had been.

She couldn’t see him anymore — he had clearly started packing up the instant he shot her, putting on a burst of speed when she took off after him — but she’d been counting the seconds and knew he couldn’t have gone far. She spun, catching a swish of black, a flying shadow -

Nile bolted after him, putting her cardio skills to use, sprinting hard — but Nicky was compact and fast, too. She was starting to see the shape and form of him, darting ahead of her, ducking between exposed framing and steel beams. He was going to run out of room fast enough — past the end of this building, there was nothing but an eighty-foot drop down onto a busy street below — she drew deep and hit the gas, sprinting forward, legs pistoning hard — 

Borne on wings of adrenaline and competition, surging ahead with a wild blood-singing chaotic joy, Nile threw herself forward and just fucking bodied Nicky. He hit the floor in a crash, sniper rifle bag toppling out of his hands and clattering away. She pushed off him and scrambled to her feet, whirling around. With the superhuman speed that came from literal centuries of practice, Nicky was on his feet and had his beautiful longsword drawn in the blink of an eye. He wore no body armor, just a simple black hooded shirt, dark jeans, plain boots.

Nile circled Nicky, wary, thinking of her training and everything she knew. Nicky did not attack, but flashed her a wide, happy grin, his clear blue eyes sparkling. His hood had come off and his light hair was spiking up in all directions. He looked all of about seventeen years old, were it not for the fact that he could kill her in a thousand ways without breaking a sweat.

“You helped me,” she said. “You shot me, you gave away your position. Why?”

“You had the right idea,” said Nicky. “I wanted to reward all your hard work. And I didn’t want to spend the  _ entire _ day waiting for you to find me. I want to go kick Joe’s ass.”

“You think we should go for him first?”

“You’ll need both of us helping you if you want to take down Andromache,” he pointed out. 

“But I need to tap you out first,” Nile said, warningly.

“Yes, you do!” said Nicky. “Get to it, then.”

She continued circling him, sizing him up, considering. Although Nicky openly acknowledged he wasn’t the best brawler, he was obviously more experienced than she, and he was armed. The longsword was poised and ready, shining clean and unmarred in the sunlight and shadow. She might be able to nip in fast, but she’d be unlikely to make contact, and far more likely to lose an arm or a leg to a sharp swing or thrust of that sword. An idea came alight in her mind, a tiny flame curling awake. 

“Hey, Nicky,” she said slowly. “Have you ever heard of a guy named Indiana Jones?”

“No,” said Nicky. “Who’s that?”

She had the Glock out and a shot fired with a bang before he finished his sentence. Her aim was quick and true, the round punching through his left wrist and exploding his right hand in a chaotic splinter of blood, bone, and gristle. Nicky shouted once, a hoarse yell in Italian, as his fingers and tendons became a nerveless, pulverized mess and his longsword dropped harmlessly to the floor. He gasped, dropping down to his knees on instinct, curling both destroyed hands protectively up to his chest.

Nile swallowed, thumbed the safety back on, and holstered the gun. “Are you okay?” She tried to keep her voice steady, but her heart was pounding hard in her chest, and she couldn’t look away from Nicky.

Already, bones were knitting back together in a slick film of white gristle, sinew and muscle braiding and twisting up and down fingers, blood and skin slapping and stretching themselves back together. Nicky looked up at her. Nile steeled herself to see terror in his eyes (which would have broken her heart), or worse, anger (which would have frightened her). But instead, he looked — proud?

“Nice shot!” Nicky said in wonder. He got to his feet, turning both hands back and forth in front of him, flexing fingers experimentally. Already, both hands were neatly healed, skin fresh and pink and clean. Only the wide spatter of blood on his lap and the floor gave any indication of violence. Confirming his hands were in good shape, Nicky used the sharp toe of one boot to flip his longsword up by the blade and caught it, giving pommel and hilt a quick inspection for damage. Seeing that the longsword was unharmed, he sheathed it without a second glance. 

“Very creative, Nile. Excellent speed and aim.” He reached one arm out to her, hand extended to shake. She shook slowly and carefully, hardly daring to squeeze or apply any pressure, her heart practically vibrating out of her chest. Her unsure, careful gentleness made Nicky smile at her, his gaze softening with care. “It’s okay, little sister,” he said. “I am okay.”

“You sure?” Nile said, hating the wet wobble in her voice. Andy or Joe wouldn’t have hesitated, would have fired without a thought, wouldn’t be so afraid now.

“Very,” he said. He showed her his slender, long-fingered hands again, which now looked perfectly ordinary. Nile urged her breathing to slow. “Trust me, we’ve all come back from worse. Little exterior bones and muscles heal up quick.” He scooped up his sniper rifle bag and threw it casually over his shoulder. “Now, if you had simply blown my head off, that might have taken a minute.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. She cleared her throat. Then, giving it a little more steel, more strength: “Yeah. Okay. You ready to go get Joe?” She hoped she sounded normal. Fearless. Hard.

Evidently, she was unconvincing. Nicky was still looking at her with that unflappable, soft kindness. “Nile, it is all right to be afraid,” he said. “You should see Joe whenever I get hurt, or Andy whenever one of us go down. Being scared is normal, even after a hundred deaths, even after a thousand years.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.” She coughed and swiped a hand across her nose. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

Nicky opened his mouth to speak again, then clearly decided against it. “All right,” he said gently. “Okay.” He pulled out one of the burner phones and dashed off a quick text. A second later, Nile’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Nicky had apparently texted all three of them.

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ I am down. Nile is a true genius! _

Then, a second later:

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ Player 2 has entered the game!  _ 😘

Pointedly, Andy did not respond. 

Nile felt her competitive spirit ticking back up, her hands and joints loosening up, heartbeat slowing from pinwheeling fear and anxiety into something more direct, focused, intense.

“Ready?” Nicky asked.

“Ready!” Nile said. She put out her fist, expectantly. Nicky looked down, clearly unsure how to respond — which made Nile laugh. She reached forward and grabbed his other hand, forming it into a fist, then bouncing it off her own. “Dap!” she said. “Fistbump?”

“Ah, I see,” he said. “Fistbump, okay.” And he did it again, which made Nile grin in delight.

“Come on!”

—

Working together, it took Nicky and Nile a solid four hours to track down and tap out Joe. Nile had thought Joe would take the high ground or stay hidden, but Nicky pointed out that Joe had an excellent ability to fit into a crowd and usually preferred to hide in plain sight during recon work.

Leveraging that strategy, they fanned out and started casing streets together, working their way from the construction site down into main thoroughfares. Istanbul’s busy, narrow streets were crammed with cafes and restaurants from all over the world, overflowing corner shops and bookstores, elegant department stores with French names, doner and kebab street food stalls with packed queues, tiny churches and sprawling mosques. Dodging honking taxicabs, slow-moving buses, and crowds of pedestrians, Nile and Nicky texted each other updates as they cleared block after block. Nile scoured street level and upwards, searching for a flash of blue or a backwards cap or a dark beard. But everywhere she looked, she only saw dozens of other men who fit Joe’s description, especially from the back or at a distance.

**_Nile:_ ** _ I have an idea. Back me up on this.  _

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ Yes, whatever you like. _

Then, in a separate thread:

**_Nile:_ ** _ Joe, I need help! _ _   
  
_

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ no! where is the challenge if I help you? _

**_Nile:_ ** _ No, not that — I mean, I lost Nicky! _

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ what do you mean lost? _

**_Nile:_ ** _ We were working together, casing our way down Istiklal Ave — I think he got spotted by a cop. He has his shit hidden pretty well, but with the extra tourists here for Victory Day, I think police presence is on high alert. I ducked into a bookstore but I saw him getting patted down and hustled into a car. _

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ all lies. _

**_Nile:_ ** _ I swear it. _

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ good try, but I know you’re conning me. I can see him. he is fine. _

Then, a second later:

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ shit.  _

Flipping fast back to her other thread, she dashed off a text to Nicky.

**_Nile:_ ** _ Where are you? He says he can SEE you. Right now. _

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ Just off Cicek Pasaji. _

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ I have him. Italian restaurant. Purple door, red roses. He knows he’s made, he’s leaving. _

**_Nile:_ ** _ On my way. Two seconds! _

Nile pressed her advantage. Keeping her map of the neighborhood in her head, she slipped around a group of Australian tourists and hooked a hard right between a florist’s shop and a tourism office, pounding down the alley at a dead sprint. The tourist attraction of Cicek Pasaji itself — an enormous, historic open-air pedestrian courtyard filled with beautiful restaurants — was too closed-off and high-attention for their little game, but there were a ton of smaller restaurants around, and she quickly zeroed in on the Italian restaurant in question. 

There was Joe, walking away at a slow amble — evidently unarmed, no weapon to be seen. He wasn’t even carrying a bag, just dressed casually in a light jacket, sunglasses, a small knit  _ taqiyah _ . He looked for all the world like a fashionable local, out for an afternoon stroll on a gorgeous late summer day in Istanbul. An easy target. 

Except — 

— he was absolutely surrounded by people. Between Istiklal Avenue (one of the most popular tourist thoroughfares in Istanbul) and Cicek Pasaji itself (especially around lunchtime), the entire area was positively wall-to-wall with tourists. There was an entire German tour bus disembarking on a nearby curbside, half a dozen Americans waiting for the next double-decker hop-on/hop-off, a roving pack of six-year-old hijabi schoolgirls with four adult chaperones. 

Worst of all, there were actual Istanbul cops, wearing black body armor and short black berets, armed with small assault rifles, posted up as security between the Consulate and the Museum.

She could pop Joe at range, but she didn’t have a silencer, and it would be far too loud — every eye in the place would be on her, and the last thing she wanted was to get black-bagged by local cops. It would put Joe at risk, too — he’d be swarmed by onlookers and probably dragged off to a hospital.

She’d have to get close to Joe, but there’s no way she could last in a knock-down, drag-out brawl against him. And that would draw attention, too — she had no idea how Istanbul cops treated Black women they viewed as a threat, but with the bone-deep instinct of a Black woman in the United States, she knew she had to give them a wide berth. And the last thing she wanted was police attention on Joe — she didn’t know what kind of false papers Joe had on him, but if they suspected him of forgery and pegged him as Syrian or North African, there was no guarantee they’d let him go.

Nile pulled her hat down low and stabbed her glasses back up on her nose, moving as calmly and casually as possible, keeping pace with Joe. She pulled out her phone and prayed she looked like a tourist. 

**_Nile:_ ** _ I’m tailing him. Suggestions?  _

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ Too many here. Get him alone. _

**_Nile:_ ** _ Box him in? I come from south, you from north? _

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ Following your lead. _

She started veering off to her left. Ahead of her, Nicky stepped out of an Apple store and deftly made his way through the crowd, angling to Joe’s right. He wasn’t bothering to hide, letting his black hood down and his catastrophically messy hair free, canvas bag still slung over one shoulder.

Nile could tell the second Joe saw Nicky coming from his right. Instantly glancing over his left shoulder, sizing up groups and crowds, he started casually strolling off to the left. What protected Joe also hamstrung him — he couldn’t move too fast and definitely couldn’t break and run. 

Sensing the opportunity, Nile pressed closer, nudging carefully past a large family pushing a baby carriage. It was the work of a moment to make herself visible, moving fast into Joe’s peripheral vision on his left. He made eye contact with her, dark brown eyes crinkling into thoughtfulness. 

She could almost  _ see _ him thinking, weighing distance and speed, considering approach and available exits, thinking about who would present the most aggressive threat. Ahead of him, his escape route was quickly closing, a row of police and a ticket booth gating off the entrance to the Museum.

Squaring his shoulders, Joe evidently made a decision. Picking up the pace, he shoved both hands in his pockets, hooked left, and disappeared down a side street.

Nicky and Nile closed in, entering the side street just in time to see him dip into a nearby alley.

“Is he trying to run?” hissed Nile.

“Following your lead,” repeated Nicky, eyes front.

They hustled forward. As the nearby street sounds and pedestrian activity dropped into a more distant rumble, Nile and Nicky entered the alley together. Nicky went high, Nile went low, both with weapons drawn.

But Joe was nowhere to be seen.

At that moment, Nile had two thoughts instantaneously:

_ I have walked into a trap. _

And:

_ Wait, where did he hide the shotgun? _

At that moment, the alleyway exploded with a low  _ boom _ . This was no quick, precise sniper bullet popping neatly through a shoulder. The shotgun’s enormous slug rounds were like bombs, a veritable wall of explosive ordinance going off at once, an absolutely unstoppable flood of carnage. Nile flew backward, carried fully off her feet by the force of four armor-piercing slugs catching her in the chest and stomach. She hit the ground and slid, careened backwards into a trash can, and actually screamed when she saw — then felt — the state of her abdomen.

“Jesus Christ!” she moaned, biting off a howl. “This was supposed to be a stealth mission!” Anger suffused her. What the fuck did Joe think he was doing?

“It is,” said Joe, “As long as we finish up here fast!” He threw down the shotgun and squared up.

“Are you fucking kidding me? There is no goddamn way.” Anger was spiralling through her, adrenaline and competition corkscrewing sideways into rage, her own desperate physical pain spiking her blood with fury, all her fear and anxiety swirling into an untrammeled wrath. She slammed a fist down on the ground. “You broke the rules!”

“I did no such thing. I told you I brought the shotgun,” Joe said patiently, as if he was tutoring a lesson to an petulant child. “We have learned a lesson about inventory today, haven’t we?”

“Not that you  _ have _ the shotgun — the noise it made! This!” Nile gestured wildly to her body. “We’re supposed to avoid attracting attention!” She craned her head toward the alley’s entrance, sure that curious civilians or armed police would start closing in at any moment — 

“Do you see any cops around yet?” Joe threw his arms wide, indicating the entire alleyway. “Part of a stealth mission is knowing where they are and how far away. I know exactly what they can hear and how fast they can get here. There’s a reason I haven’t shot you twice. Now, get up and get to it.”

Nile gaped at him, anger making her shake. “I can’t,” she said. “Joe, I can’t.”

“You can,” he said. “You have to.”

Nicky, who had said nothing and obviously hadn’t gotten shot, stood waiting between the two of them. “You can, Nile. You are very strong and courageous.”

“Oh, fuck me,” she said with venom. She struggled up on her elbows, feeling ribs and muscles crack and bend, audibly hearing her own heart beat sluggish and wet in her chest. The horror of it consumed her, her stomach turning to water, her hands shaking. But deeper than revulsion, the pain was absolutely extortionate, agony driving through her in waves, thudding helplessly in her ears, stinging her eyes with hot tears. She heaved herself up, then promptly fell backward again. “Jesus Christ!”   
  


“Come on, Marine,” he said. “You gonna kick my ass for this or what?”

Nile shot him a glare that could level mountains. “You can fuck right off, Joe,” she wheezed.

“That’s right,” said Joe. “Get mad. Then get up.”

_ You come from warriors. _

“Goddamn it!” She let her wrath course through her, firing her up, punching into her spirit, zinging through her veins. “ _ Goddamn it! _ ” In one great lunge, she surged upward and got to her feet, swaying, feeling ribs crack back together and muscle zip itself whole. She nearly lost her balance and tipped again, but dug in her heels and held strong. Spitting a wad of blood from the corner of her mouth, she squared her shoulders and brought her hands up, thinking fast. 

Nile was at half-capacity at best, chest still stitching itself together and blood still roaring in her ears. There was no way she could tap out Joe in an even match. And there was no way she could fire her handgun fast enough — this had only barely worked with Nicky, and even if it worked on Joe, she’d surely draw attention to all three of them; there was no guarantee they’d escape without being noticed. What should she do?

_ This is a lesson in collaboration as well as competition. _

Nicky was still standing casually between them. He looked open, graceful, and calm, arms out and hands open, resting his weight evenly on both feet, eyes on her, clearly waiting for his cue. She caught his eyes. He winked.

They came down on Joe together, Nicky from the back and Nile from the front. Nile let Nicky do the heavy lifting, catching Joe in a chokehold and leveraging his own bodyweight against him. As they struggled, she staggered closer, gaining strength and balance with each step. Joe was fighting now, clearly attempting to flip Nicky and get free, but Nicky was holding his own for the crucial few seconds Nile needed.

She rushed forward, knife out and in her hand like a wish. She surged up on her toes and pressed the tip up underneath Joe’s left eye. She held it there, letting a thick drop of blood well up and fall down the blade.

The moment slowed, then stopped. Nicky was holding Joe in a desperate, scrabbling headlock. Joe was looking down at Nile with an almost beatific expression, a knowing smile. Nile had the knife pressed up into the ridge beneath his orbital socket, welling blood trickling drop by drop down the edge.

“In a real fight, I could have this knife up through your eye and into your brain,” Nile whispered. “But we’re careful about killing, especially during training exercises.” Nile peered up at Joe, searching him. “And I like you.”

He flashed her a grin. “In a real fight, I would be dead,” he said. “I tap out.”

Nicky let him go instantly. Joe staggered one step forward, coughed, then straightened up. Glancing over his shoulder, his eyes widened. “We gotta go,” he said quickly. “Police.” 

Moving fast, the three of them stashed the shotgun and weapons, brushed off dust and blood, pulled hats and hoods low, and exited swiftly down the alley and through a gift shop. Taking right turn after left, left turn after right, they joined a throng of tourists on an Istanbul ghost tour, then peeled off into a coffeehouse, then finally paused for breath outside a sushi restaurant.

Joe pulled out his phone.

**_Yusuf:_ ** _ i’m down. valuable lessons learned by all. where are u? _

True to form, Andy said nothing.

Nile blew out a breath and thought. “Baklava?” she suggested.

“Too obvious,” said Joe. “Movie theatre?”

“Too crowded,” said Nicky. “French fries?”

They pondered this for a moment.

“Start with movie theatres, work our way through Andy’s favorite fast food places, then hit up the good baklava joints on the way back to the apartment?” she said.

“You’re on, little sister,” said Joe.

“This way,” said Nicky, zooming in on his phone. “They’re doing a marathon of Studio Ghibli movies at The Crown Theatre until midnight!”

—

Spreading out and working as a trio, Nile, Joe, and Nicky had scoured every movie theatre doing all manner of children’s films and romantic comedies, scoped out every Patatos and Zeyif and McDonalds, and nipped into every beloved cafe that served baklava — even going so far as to swing into the truly awful chain grocery store that sold it in weird little frozen packages. They cased bars and street food stalls, libraries and pharmacies, closed bookstores and shuttered department stores. They even doubled back near the apartment a few times, wondering if she was hiding in plain sight. But when there was no sign of Andy by fifteen minutes to midnight, Nile and the boys knew it was time to call it a loss.

**_Niccoló:_ ** _ Boss — we’re headed back.  _

There was no response from Andy.

“Playing it cool, I guess,” Nile said, angling for good cheer as they trooped back down the street toward the apartment. “She said no hints.”

  
“Yeah,” said Joe, “but we’ve done this game a thousand times. I thought I knew her tells a bit better.” His disappointment was palpable as he clicked open the garage door and swung inside.

“She is really putting us through our paces,” said Nicky. He shrugged, stripping off his blood-soaked shirt and tossing it in the garbage. “We’ll get her next time.”

“Thanks for spending the day with me, guys,” said Nile, throwing her own jacket in the bin after Nicky’s shirt. “It was tough, but I learned a lot.”

“Always,” said Nicky, reaching out and palming her head affectionately. She grinned up at him and headed inside just as the clock struck midnight.

Andy was there — but she didn’t look particularly smug or triumphant as Nile would expect after a victory. Neither did she look particularly appraising or ready to share notes, as she usually did after a training exercise. She was actually not sitting still at all, but moving quickly from room to room, clearing cabinets and packing various items in an enormous black duffel bag she’d opened on the kitchen table. A gun, two knives, a length of rope — all stacked neatly in the bag. 

“Everything okay, boss?” Joe’s question was soft and casual, but Nile knew the answer before Andy spoke.

“No,” Andy said, rifling through the couch cushions and retrieving a balisong. “Copley called me thirty minutes ago. We’re wheels up out of Istanbul Airport in an hour.”

“Where are we headed?” asked Nicky, already swinging up the stairs to their bedroom.

“Paris!” called Andy up to him.

“The City of Light,” murmured Joe.

“What’s the job?” asked Nicky, at the same moment.

Andy jumped up and pulled down the snub-nosed .38 Special hidden neatly behind the mantelpiece. “We’re getting the full brief on the plane,” she said. Both balisong and gun went in the bag. “Short version is, there’s a major arms deal coming up in three days that will provide a direct funding stream for human trafficking circles in Europe. The deal is being conducted by a particularly fast-moving terrorist cell run by a highly secretive kingpin. We take out the kingpin, we collapse the cell, the arms deal never goes through, no funding to the traffickers.” 

She headed into the bathroom with a trash bag — Nile could hear the clattering of bottles and trash being swept into the plastic. “Copley vetted it carefully,” she called down the hall to them. “After we talked, he sent details to me via text.”

Joe headed further into the apartment and starting clearing the kitchen, pitching spices and boxes of vegetables and wrapped Tupperware leftovers into the garbage. “What kind of major arms deal funding a human trafficking ring can’t be intercepted by Interpol or the usual parties? Certainly MI6 or the General Directorate would prefer to take this?”

Andy came back out of the bathroom, blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You’re not wrong, and I asked Copley the same thing. Apparently the terror cell is too small and moving too fast — they can’t pin ‘em down through the usual channels, and they keep losing resources every time they try. The fastest and cleanest way to disrupt the deal is to take out the kingpin directly, and our particular brand of wetwork is the best in the business.”

Nicky poked his head out from his and Joe’s bedroom: “Who’s the kingpin?”

“We’re getting the full dossier on the plane,” said Andy, “but Copley says it’s a newcomer, Vietnamese or Chinese national, connections in London. But the deal is going down in Paris, so that’s where we’re headed.”

Andy headed back to the table, throwing a few more weapons in the over-full bag and starting to zip it into submission. She seemed to take notice of Nile for the first time. 

“Hey,” she said. “Are you going to get packed?”

Nile felt like she was thinking through sludge. They’d been living in this apartment for six months — she’d lived in Istanbul longer than she’d lived anywhere after leaving home. And now they were leaving, just like that. Fifteen minutes ago she was walking back to this apartment as she’d done a hundred times; but now, she’d never sit out on the balcony again, never walk down to the corner bakery for fresh açma again, never pick up tinfoil-wrapped doner kebab from her favorite stall again. By the time she ever came back here, would it be hundreds of years in the future? Would Istanbul be as different to her in the future as it was to Nicky and Joe now? Would she even recognize it? 

And they’d be in Paris by morning — and — 

“What about Booker?” 

Andy stopped moving, her hands stilling on the zip of the bag. “What  _ about _ Booker?”

Nile struggled to organize her thoughts. “We’re only six months into his exile. What if we run into him?”

“We won’t,” said Joe, with an uncharacteristic darkness in his tone. “Ten million people in Paris, it would take a lot for us to run into him. And we know well enough to leave each other alone.” He brushed past her and headed upstairs, presumably to help Nicky pack.

Andy stepped forward, reaching out, placing both hands on Nile’s shoulders with a soothing, steadying breath. “It’s okay, Nile. We’re exiling him, but we’re not hurting him. We’ll just pass like ships in the night.” She peered into Nile’s eyes, apparently seeing something there that troubled her. Andy had a way like that — seeing through confusion or lies into some kind of truth beneath. “What’s really on your mind?”

Nile tried to look anywhere but at Andy, which meant she ended up just looking down at her scuffed shoes. Feeling impossibly young and immature, hating the sound of her own voice, she couldn’t quite stop herself from saying: “This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere since I graduated from high school. I didn’t realize we’d be leaving so soon, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Andy said. “I remember what that’s like. You get used to it. Pretty soon, Paris will feel like that, too. And the next city we go to, and the one after that. Before long, you’ll have your pick of places around the world you can make your own.” She squeezed Nile’s shoulder in a fleeting gesture of rough comfort. “You can always come back here, you know. I’ve got bolt-holes all over the planet, and so do those two. You like this place enough, you can make it yours.”

Nile turned that over in her head. That sounded good. Better than she’d even thought to hope for. “Yeah, maybe I’ll buy this place for myself someday,” she said. “You’ll come visit me.”

Andy grinned. “Always. Best baklava in the world here in Turkey. You won’t be able to keep me away.” She straightened up. “But first, let’s take out a human trafficking ring in Paris. Get your shit, I want to be in the car in ten minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Nile, then dashed up the stairs.

In her notebook _ —  _ just below  _ Remember zugzwang: compulsion to move will weaken your position, but correct response can keep the game a draw —  _ the last note she marked in Istanbul simply read:

_ Someday, come back and buy this place. _


	5. The elusive light, shining strange on my face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy said nothing. But when Nile risked giving Andy’s hand a small squeeze — the tiniest of movements that she hoped expressed comfort and sympathy — Andy didn’t withdraw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn for the strange. Old friends make a reappearance.

Naturally, the plane was a compact private jet, all-black and nearly featureless. It bore no insignia of any government that Nile could see and was not emblazoned with any identifying name — just a thin row of small white numbers at the nose. Andy parked the beat-up Renault on the tarmac, tossed the keys to a security agent in black Kevlar, and was first up the steps.

“This one’s not as nice,” pronounced Joe as he climbed up, giving it a once-over with a professional’s eye for detail. “But hey, we’re not in cuffs this time.”

“No TV or champagne,” said Nicky, following him, “but I’ll take it.”

Nile was impressed, but tried not to let it show as she took up a seat at one of the glossy black leather chairs near a window. Low blue striplights gave the cabin a soft, atmospheric glow.

Once they were all settled, Copley himself came out of the front cabin. He looked strangely younger than when Nile had seen him last — the pinched, underfed look had gone from him, and the dark shadows under his eyes were softer, lighter. He looked genuinely happy to see them, smiling and meeting each of their eyes in turn. 

“Thank you for joining me,” he said, passing out a thin, glassy iPad to each of them. “Password is today’s date — 1-0-2-0.” Swiping hers open, Nile found a collection of documents. Tapping quickly through each one, she saw dossiers on the arms deal, the human trafficking rings, the planned meet in Paris in three days.

“Talk us through it,” said Andy, as the plane took off and climbed. Nile couldn’t resist peering out the window, watching the glittering city lights of Istanbul fall away into the black.

“All right. Page one of your dossier,” said Copley. “Let’s talk about the arms deal itself. The seller is almost certainly a rogue faction from Pakistan, working off the grid from ISI and trading in ICBM parts and manufacture.”

“About what I’d expect,” said Andy, scrolling through with the tip of a finger. “Shaheen-3 components and engineering?”

“Precisely,” said Copley. “The deal is inked at twelve figures.”

“And the buyer?”

“Page two. The UK wing of a European human trafficking network,” said Copley. “Their portfolio is well-known to certain factions of the Royal family. Their endgame is to sell the plans to Westminster, then funnel the proceeds into operations targeting vulnerable migrants coming north from Syria.”

“Some things never change,” muttered Joe, zooming in on the requisite documents with a sour look of distaste. “Where’s the deal going down?”

“Three days from now, there is a scheduled meet at Le Procope in the 6th Arrondissement,” began Copley. “You’ll find a map and blueprints on page three. The entire restaurant has been booked for a private party scheduled to begin at 10:00pm.”

“Le Procope? Off Boulevard Saint-Germane?” said Joe, sounding genuinely surprised.

“The very same,” said Copley with a rueful grin. “Oldest restaurant in Paris, founded 1686.”

“And in a fashionable location, just off the Luxembourg Gardens,” mused Andy, with a touch of disapproval.

  
“It’s what I’d do,” responded Joe. “For deals of this importance, nobody meets in empty warehouses or late-night docks anymore. They’ll show up in Dior and Desmond Merrion, eat sorbet and drink fine wine, shake hands, and go see an opera at the Palais Garnier afterward.”

“The real question is why they have to be there at all,” pointed out Andy. “If I had connections enough to sell Pakistani ICBM plans to the UK — or if I were a London-based buyer intending to swing a deal with the royals — I wouldn’t be caught dead in Paris. I’d make the transaction remotely, send anonymous transfers while I sip mai tais on a beach in Australia.”

“We’d thought the same thing,” said Copley. “But the deal is being brokered by a cell, and the cell is organizing a direct meet.” 

Nile dutifully flipped to the page four as Copley continued. “The cell itself doesn’t have a name, just a number — 504.” (This was evidently pronounced  _ five-oh-four. _ ) “They’re new to the game, possibly coming out of the sex trafficking industry in Vietnam, probably establishing ties with the Chinese pharmaceuticals black market. 504 has some kind of foothold in London, but their network is global. They’re small, move fast, and leave little trace, which is why they’ve been impossible to pin down or remove from the board. That’s where you come in. If you flip to page five —”

“Is this some kind of joke?” snapped Andy. Nile looked up with a start. Andy was suddenly furious, glaring directly at Copley, iPad clenched in one white-knuckled hand. “Is this part of your goddamn games?”

Copley’s brow furrowed in honest confusion and worry. “What? What are you talking about?”

Nile looked down at her iPad, zooming in on the slim dossier and single photo of 504’s leader. She was a young woman of Asian descent, dressed shockingly conventionally for the leader of a terror cell — black kitten heels, slim jeans, a soft red wraparound sweater. Her hair was black and parted in the middle, her makeup simple and sparing. The photo itself seemed to have been pulled from a surveillance camera; she appeared to be in a library of some kind. She looked like a college student.

“This is their leader? This woman?” said Nile. “She doesn’t look so bad —”

“ _ Is this a game to you, _ ” snarled Andy. “Tell me the truth right now or I’m going to cut off your head in this little metal tube and none of these three will stop me.”

“What’s going on?” said Nile.

“It’s her,” said Nicky. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice wavered. He sounded near tears. Seemingly without realizing he’d done it, he slipped sideways into Italian and continued, a string of increasingly tearful syllables. Nile’s Italian wasn’t good, but she thought she caught a few words —  _ after all this time, why, how? _

Joe reached out and seized Nicky’s hand, interlacing their fingers desperately. Andy looked livid. Nile’s heart was pumping fast now. She wrapped one hand around the hilt of her short knife, not knowing what was going on, but ready to lunge for Copley on Andy’s order.

There was an awful, hanging silence. Copley had his hands up, his posture soft and unthreatening. He pitched his voice low and gentle, speaking directly to Andy.

“Andromache,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is the leader of 504. Her real name is unclear, but people call her Nguyen, like Smith or Jones —”

Andy had her  _ labrys _ out and under Copley’s throat, pressing into his jugular, in the blink of an eye. 

And then the penny dropped.

“No fucking way,” Nile breathed, staring down at the grainy surveillance camera image. She looked miles away from how Nile had seen her last, on the edges of her last gasping nightmare — her face staring, eyes black and insane, broken feet and bloody fists pounding madly against the worn interior of a rusting iron coffin, the world a painful flood of dark water, everything an agonizing crush of black — but it was her. “Oh my God. It’s Quynh, isn’t it?”

Nicky actually moaned — a low, broken sound — gripping his hair with both hands, clear eyes huge and swimming with tears. Joe was rubbing his back in slow, soothing circles, but his eyes were like daggers on Copley. Andy looked ready to kill him.

“Quynh? Good God,” Copley said, in muted horror. “Are you quite sure? There’s been no sign of your particular gifts in this group, nothing that would indicate a connection to the four of you.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t know?” spat Andy. The  _ labrys _ pressed higher. Copley met her gaze. 

“Andromache, I swear it to you, on the memory of my wife, I did not know.”

“You’ve lied to us before,” said Andy, voice shaking with barely restrained wrath.

“And never again,” said Copley. “You’ve gotten the updates I’ve sent you, you know everything I have done, you know everything I am. You can kill me now, but I swear to you, I didn’t know.”

Andy cocked her head, observing him. And then she let him go, axe pulling away from his skin with little more than a mark. She stood, suddenly all nervous energy, starting to pace.

“What the fuck,” she said, “What the fuck.” Her eyes narrowed on Nile. “When’s the last time you dreamed of her?”

Nile gaped up at her, blinking. “Off and on ever since Afghanistan,” she said honestly. “I dream of her once every few weeks.”

“None of us know how this works,” Andy said, balling her hands into angry, useless fists. “Did you see anything, any sign of her getting free, any vision of her being anywhere else?”

“No,” said Nile, thinking hard. “No, it’s always been the same, Andy. The coffin, the water, furious anger. She doesn’t feel like a person at all, just a raw nerve.”

Andy threw a punch into the wall of the plane so hard her knuckles split. She glared down at her offending hand for a moment — then, a moment later, shook her head. “Jesus fucking Christ. Copley, do you have a goddamn first aid kit on this plane?”

Copley nodded and stood. “I’ll get it for you, ma’am, one moment.” And then he disappeared into the cockpit. Andy flexed her fingers and bit back a snarl.

“Andy, I am telling you, I didn’t see any sign of this in my dreams at all,” Nile said. “I don’t know how she could have done this.”

“It doesn’t make any sense, boss,” said Joe. “Nile would have seen her break out, wouldn’t she? Even if she didn’t, how could she have built some kind of criminal empire in less than a year?”

“There’s so much we don’t understand,” Andy said. She looked suddenly exhausted, her eyes ancient and far away. She threw herself back down into her seat bonelessly, all the fight worn out of her, looking for all the world like she wanted nothing more than to fall asleep — or, very possibly, simply die. Nile’s heart clenched.

“Who knows? Maybe she broke out ages ago. The dreams could be memories,” Nile said. “Or maybe we’re sharing dreams, and she dreams about her time under the sea, so I do, too. Or maybe —”

“Or maybe nothing,” said Andy. “It doesn’t matter. That’s her.” Her voice was dead, empty.

“But why,” said Nicky, speaking English for the first time in several minutes, voice hoarse with tears. “Why would she do this and not come to us? Why wouldn’t she make her presence known?”

“She’s angry,” whispered Nile. “So angry. She might not have wanted to find us until she was ready. She might want revenge.”

“When we were separated, they’d barely even invented guns,” said Andy. “Now she’s selling nuclear plans.” Andy actually laughed at that, a raw humorless movement of air that sounded more like a death rattle. “Jesus Christ.”

Copley came back in the cabin with a neat, square first aid kit, which she passed to Andy. Andy flipped the lid and began trying to work on her bloodied knuckles with uncertain hands, with nerveless, failing fingers. 

Nile reached across, telegraphing her movements, slow and easy. “It’s okay, Andy. Let me help you with that.” 

Andy looked up at Nile with a bone-deep fatigue and weariness that went far beyond anything Nile had ever seen before — then reached out her hands.

As Nile started to work on cleaning and taping Andy’s bloody knuckles, Andy simply looked away, staring out the window of the plane into the dark.

Copley cleared his throat. “This new information changes things. It explains a little about why 504 is so hard to catch and bring to ground, although obviously doesn’t sketch the full picture of the organization’s emergence and background. But,” he said slowly, tapping his stylus against his iPad, “Nguyen — Quynh, I mean — is obviously at large, and clearly facilitating the arms deal in Paris.”

“If she’s the kingpin we’re meant to take out in order to torpedo this deal,” said Joe, “there is absolutely no way in hell we are doing that.”

“The plan breaks down on multiple levels, that is correct,” said Copley. “But we cannot abide this sale of ICBM plans, and we obviously don’t want to fund millions of dollars of human trafficking operations in Europe for the next decade.”

“Why would she do this,” said Nicky, for the second time.

“I told you, she’s angry,” said Nile, uncomfortably.

“No, I mean, why would she do  _ this _ . Even if she wanted to bide her time, or come and kill us, why would Quynh throw in her lot with rapists?” Nicky looked at Nile, and for the briefest flash of a moment, he looked younger than she’d ever seen him. “We’ve all been at the mercy of men who thought they knew better what to do with our bodies. Why would Quynh ever get mixed up with men like this?”

Andy blew out a breath. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe she won’t,” said Nile. “Maybe she plans to double-cross them, or take the money and run, or any number of things. Maybe she doesn’t even remember you guys.” She steeled herself, raising her head high, squaring her shoulders. “I say we go forward.”

“What?”

“Not to kill her — we wouldn’t — but to get closer, find out what’s going on. There’s got to be a way to learn more about what she’s doing without hurting her.”

The cabin was quiet as the others considered this.

After a moment, Joe sighed. “I’m with Nile. I can’t think of a better way to help Quynh than to go where we  _ know _ she’s going to be in three days.”

Copley nodded. “Yes, that is fair. And if we can prevent the arms deal, the more the better.”

Andy looked across at Nicky. “Niccoló?”

Nicky wiped his eyes, then took a fortifying breath. Meeting her gaze, he nodded. “I am with Nile and Yusuf. We must help her, and stop this.” 

Andy held his eyes for a long time. Then, she straightened up. “All right, Copley. It’s settled. We’re going to Paris. I’m going for her first and foremost. If I can stop your arms deal, I will, but my priority is making contact with Quynh.”

“Understood.” Copley stood again, slipping his tablet under one arm. “Please familiarize yourself with all the details, ladies and gentlemen. Touch-down in Paris in three hours. I will be up front with the captain if you need me.”

And with that, he was gone.

“Three hours to Paris,” murmured Joe.

“We will be with her soon,” said Nicky.

Andy said nothing. But when Nile risked giving Andy’s hand a small squeeze — the tiniest of movements that she hoped expressed comfort and sympathy — Andy didn’t withdraw.

**END OF PART I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for Part I! I have some sketches on where to go from here, but I'm not sure I have the bandwidth for scaffolding out the full arc (which would probably be another twenty-five to fifty thousand words). What do you think? Good? Bad? A little rough? Worth pursuing? If there's interest, maybe I'll dust off the notes and keep going in this vein. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments below!


End file.
